Jay-Z could be set to headline the Super Bowl LXI halftime show in 2027.
On Tuesday (Oct. 20), a report from Puck cited multiple insiders who claimed that Hov had selected himself for next year’s major performance. Neither the NFL nor Roc Nation has officially confirmed the booking, but Jay-Z could potentially announce the news this weekend. The rapper is scheduled to perform two nearly sold-out shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., the same venue where the Super Bowl will take place on Feb. 14, 2027.
The reported selection comes as Hov enjoys a major career run, celebrating the 30th anniversary of his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, and the 25th anniversary of The Blueprint. In July, he earned more than $42 million from three sold-out shows at Yankee Stadium. He also headlined the Roots Picnic in Philadelphia in May, reportedly grossed $12 million from a sold-out Paris show last month, and performed two sold-out shows at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London last month, which featured a reunion with the Fugees.
Jay-Z has been involved in the Super Bowl halftime show since 2019, when Roc Nation reportedly signed a $5 million-per-year deal with the NFL to curate and produce the performances. The league renewed the partnership in 2024 for another five years.
The deal came less than a year after Hov took aim at the Super Bowl halftime show on his 2018 Beyoncé collaboration, “Apesh\*t,” expressing a very different position at the time.
“I said no to the Superbowl/You need me, I don’t need you/Every night we in the endzone/Tell the NFL we in stadiums too,” he rapped in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.
The 2019 partnership between Roc Nation and the NFL faced criticism, with some accusing the league of using its alliance with Jay-Z to improve its public image following the Kaepernick controversy three years earlier. When the deal was announced, the Brooklyn superstar described the partnership as a shift from protest to action, emphasizing that the next step was finding ways to address social injustice.
The latest report about the halftime show follows a September story from the Daily Mail, which claimed that the NFL and Roc Nation were struggling to secure a solo headliner. The report also suggested that Jay-Z might perform alongside special guests, although the article was later removed.
